With the advent of smaller, more digestible games over the last generation many publishers have had the opportunity to revive retro franchises with less risk by releasing them as $10-$15 digital games. From Konami's "ReBirth" series on WiiWare to Capcom's revival of classics like Bionic Commando and Ducktales, many publishers who rose to prominence in the heyday of the 80's have been able to release new games from franchises from generations ago. More recently, Nintendo has been embracing the concept of creating their own digital games for the Wii U and 3DS eShops and they even dabbled in a digital retro revival of their own with 2009's Excitebike: World Rally on WiiWare which led me to ask "what else could Nintendo revive?" My main criteria for this list is that the game has to be suitable for a digital download, meaning an RPG wouldn't be ideal because of it's length. With that said, here is my top five games that deserve a 3DS eShop revival.

Odama

Odama is actually the game that inspired this article. I was thinking about this obscure "gem" and thought about how it's unique style might be appropriate for the 3DS. The concept of Odama alone merits a revisit from Nintendo, at least. Odama was the brainchild of Yoot Saito, who was famous for the equally weird Seaman for the Sega Dreamcast. It was released at the end of the GameCube's life in early 2006 and was met with mixed reactions. Most notably, critics complained that the game was simply too difficult, which seems understandable given the premise of the game. The player is tasked with controlling a giant pinball and using it to crush enemy forces on a battlefield. Not only did the player have to try to avoid hitting their own troops while crushing the enemy's army, they also had to use the included microphone to direct troops around with their voice.

For me, the desire to see a new Odama comes purely from a perspective of curiosity. The 3DS has a mic built in so you can command your troops and the 3D perspective could add a lot visually. I also think Odama could work on the Wii U for a similar reason and because the HD visuals would make what's happening on the battlefield look more clear.

Pokemon Pinball

When Pokemon was released on the Game Boy in Japan in 1996 it became a phenomenon, spawning numerous sequels and spinoffs that still top the sales charts today. One of these spinoffs was Pokemon Pinball, released in 1999 for the Game Boy Color. The premise is simple: combine the mechanics of pinball with the monster catching of Pokemon. The result was well received by critics and fans and even led to a sequel for the Game Boy Advance called Pokemon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire.

To me, this seems like a no-brainer for Nintendo: Pokemon prints money and a pinball game can be made and sold fairly cheaply on digital platforms. Combining the classic Pokemon Pinball gameplay that people love with the over 700 creatures the series now features would make everyone happy. Gotta catch 'em all, indeed.

Ice Climber

Before their appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nana and Popo could be found scaling mountains in Ice Climber for the NES. Released as a black box title in 1985, players had to climb mountains to recover stolen vegetables from a giant condor. While the game did enjoy mild success, it never received a sequel.

Ice Climber seems like the perfect retro game to revive, especially on a digital platform. Nana and Popo are more recognizable than ever thanks to the aforementioned Super Smash Bros. series and the premise of the game lends itself perfectly to a handheld. Players could be tasked with scaling the various mountains as fast as they can and set times or scores that their friends could challenge. This means that the levels would be short and easily digestible for on-the-go gaming, as well as providing replay value.

Advance Wars

This choice, I must confess, was more or less born from my desire to see a new Advance Wars of any kind. The Advance Wars series actually started in 1988 with Famicom Wars, which was never released stateside. In fact, that's how all the early titles in this game were treated, that is until the first Advance Wars was released in the U.S. in 2001 (as a side note, the game was actually released first in the U.S. on September 10, 2001 and was later postponed in Europe and Japan because of the September 11th terrorist attacks that occurred the next day, meaning that the U.S. went from never get a "Wars" game to having one exclusively until 2002 in Europe and 2004 in Japan).The U.S. received every Advance Wars after that, but the sales of the games in Japan started to stagnate, so much so that the Japanese version Days of Ruin for the DS was eventually cancelled (until it resurfaced as a downloadable Club Nintendo reward in Japan this year).

The game features tactical, turn-based gameplay in which the player moves units around the field and tries to destroy the enemies army and capture their bases.

As I said before, I just want more Advance Wars. Nintendo could easily do a shorter digital game on the 3DS, it's just a matter of whether or not the market still exists for it. I believe it does, but maybe Nintendo doesn't. If developer Intelligent Systems' other turn-based strategy series Fire Emblem is any indication, there are definitely people around who enjoy these types of games and who would love another one. Hopefully the release of Days of Ruin in Japan sparks NCL's interest in making a new one.

StarTropics

The final game on my list is another game that hasn't seen a release in Nintendo's native Japan, StarTropics. Released in 1990 for the NES, StarTropics takes a few ques from Nintendo's most popular action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda with it's top down perspective, puzzles, and monster fighting. The difference, however, is that the game is much more linear and is divided into chapters. StarTropics did receive a sequel in the form of Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II for the NES in 1994, but by then the SNES had already been out for years and people had mostly moved on.

Much like Advance Wars, my hope for a new StarTropics stems from the fact that we just haven't seen one in a while. A new StarTropics game created with the Zelda: A Link Between Worlds engine sounds incredible, but the fact that StarTropics 1 and 2 didn't even see a virtual console release in Japan makes this one seem like a long shot.

So there it is, my top five games that deserve a 3DS eShop revival. I would like to point out that I would have had Chibi-Robo on the list, but they recently released a new Chibi-Robo photography game on the 3DS eShop. I feel that this further proves that Nintendo is willing to take a bigger risk with series that don't sell as well on a digital platform. I'd love to hear what series you feel deserve a digital revival, so leave a suggestion in the comments below. Also feel free to follow me here on IGN and I'll try to make sure to follow you back as well. Thanks for reading.

I'd like to start off, first and foremost, by saying that I don't believe EA is the worst company in the country. Whether you agree with their business practices or not, many games you love wouldn't exist if not for funding from EA. Now that that's out of the way, I would like to directly respond to a blog post by EA's COO Peter Moore.

Mr. Moore, I appreciate your attempt at reaching out towards gamers and acknowledging many mistakes your company has made. That being said, many of the comments you made in your blog post show that you and your company are out of touch with what gamers really want, what they expect, and what EA needs to do to repair their reputation. There is no doubt that EA makes many quality games, but the anti-consumer tactics EA uses is the main reason why your company is being voted as the worst. Specifically, I would like to address a few of the bullet point comments you made.

Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period.

I'm sorry, but giving the same response to a legitimate complaint is not going to make it go away. As we've seen, SimCity can be played offline indefinitely and requires no online functionality outside of saving. The only logical conclusion that can be made is that SimCity's "always on" DRM is to prevent piracy. EA has had multiple excuses for the radical anti-piracy measures and I give EA a lot of credit for trying to make things right by offering a free game to those impacted by server issues, but the fact of the matter is that the move was very unpopular and offering up excuse after excuse didn't help anything.

Some claim there’s no room for Origin as a competitor to Steam. 45 million registered users are proving that wrong.

Now, this is where the blog post gets absurd. Of course there are going to be 45 million registered users when Origin is the only way to download EA games on PC. If EA's games were available on Origin and Steam, I would be surprised if there were even 5 million registered members on Origin. It's clunky, slow, and no one likes it. Forcing it on consumers by not publishing EA games on other direct distribution sources was, is, and will always be a complaint about Origin that is undeniable. Origin is the best example of EA inconveniencing and marginalizing its customers to turn a larger profit.

Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games.

While it is true that tens of millions of people have played games with micro-transactions and free-to-play models, I can guarantee that the number of people who "love" those games for those reasons are a very small fraction of that number. Beyond that, including a model like this makes sense on a mobile platform where it is more likely to be played by a casual gamer, but forcing micro-transactions into a game that I already payed $59.99 for is, again, marginalizing the consumer. I'd also like to use this section to talk about EA's position on DLC and online passes. Online passes hurt a lot of people who legitimately purchase games brand new. Despite the fact that I bought a game like Battlefield 3 brand new, I am unable to loan it to anyone else or play it online on any other console other than my own. In addition, announcing DLC before the game even comes out and releasing it on day one makes it seem like the content has been cut out of the main campaign and is being sold at a premium on its own. I shouldn't have to pay $90 to get the full experience of a game.

We’ve seen mailing lists that direct people to vote for EA because they disagree with the choice of the cover athlete on Madden NFL. Yes, really…

This is barely worth mentioning and is just deflecting from legitimate criticisms that people have with EA.

In the past year, we have received thousands of emails and postcards protesting against EA for allowing players to create LGBT characters in our games. This week, we’re seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America.

This final bullet point is actually where I would like to praise EA. For all the things they do wrong, supporting gamers' rights to create LGBT characters is a noble cause that should be celebrated. Regardless of your stance on the issue, the fact of the matter is that LGBT people exist here in real life, so why shouldn't they exist in games? If anything, it adds to the reality, believability, and immersion of games. No one is forcing you to use a LGBT character, but I give kudos to EA for having the options for those that would like to.

As I previously stated, I fully acknowledge that EA makes some great titles, but the way many of these titles are handled is what drives customers away. From SimCity's server issues to Dead Space 3's shoehorned microtransactions, customers are being alienated by EA at multiple levels. While I'm glad that EA has decided to take the time and address these issues, many more remain unexplored and Mr. Moore's responses only further the point that I'm trying to make: EA refuses to look at what the problem really is and, until they do, they're just going to be voted the worst company in America again, year after year.

What do you think about EA's response? What changes that EA needs to make are most important to you? Sound off in the comments below!

Early Monday morning here in the States, Sony streamed a Nintendo Direct-like presentation to announce a price cut and to show off the the software that will be released in the coming months. The unfortunate part about this conference, however, was that Sony didn't show off any games that we didn't already know about. With the Playstation Vita almost on life support, a price cut might be too little, too late at this stage. While it is true that the Vita needed a price cut, there are at least two things Sony could have done to improve sales that would have had a much greater effect: cutting the prices of the expensive proprietary memory cards and releasing more games.

During the presentation Sony showed off many games, probably most important among them was the fact that Final Fantasy X HD is indeed still in development. While this is encouraging, the rest of the conference was lacking. Half the games shown looked like Monster Hunter clones, which obviously begs the question "where is Monster Hunter?" In Japan Monster Hunter is most likely the second most important third party franchise (behind Dragon Quest) and Capcom's reluctance to bring the franchise to Sony's portable (a place where MH thrived last generation) throws up massive red flags. The only rational explanation I can come up with as to why Capcom has chosen the 3DS over the Vita is that Sony messed up. Looking back to the days of the dominance of the PS1 and PS2, games like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter came out almost exclusively on Playstation branded machines. When the DS came along, Square Enix jumped ship and took their ultra popular series to Nintendo's handheld. Now, the same thing is happening with Monster Hunter and the 3DS/Wii U. Now, the actual reason for this shift in platforms could be that it just makes more sense financially for SE and Capcom, but if I were in Sony's position I would have paid whatever I needed to in order to keep these franchises in the Playstation family. Without these third party juggernauts Vita sales have been absolutely atrocious in its native country.

Vita Heaven was supposed to fix this. This was Sony's big opportunity to prove to Japanese gamers that the Vita should be their system of choice. Instead, all we got was new trailers for old games. The fact that games like Gods Eater 2 are coming out on both PSP and Vita is ridiculous and shows that developers have no faith in the Vita to move units. Sony has done nothing to convince these developers to make games for Vita and the 3DS' sales numbers do enough talking. In a single week in Japan, Dragon Quest VII on 3DS outstripped the worldwide sales of almost every Vita game (with the exception of Uncharted: Golden Abyss). The numbers speak for themselves: if you want to sell units you should make games for 3DS. Sony's big chance with Vita Heaven ended up being a complete dud.

Besides games, Sony also announced new apps and a price cut. While on the surface these both seem great for Vita, their impacts could both be minimal. The Vita's new price tag is much more appealing, but the main pricing problem still remains: The ridiculous cost of Sony's proprietary memory cards. The Vita and the 3DS XL have almost the same price now in Japan, but a 32 GB memory card for Vita costs three or four times as much as one for the 3DS XL. It's these extra nickel-and-dime-type costs that make the Vita's real price still seem unappealing. The apps on Vita aren't going to be pushing units out the door either. Maybe a few years ago, before smartphones became standard, but not today.

The Playstation Vita is entering the most pivotal year of it's young life. This Friday will mark the 1 year anniversary of the Vita's launch here in the United States and while the launch lineup looked pretty appealing, the months that have followed have been completely dismal. The early half of 2013 shows very few big name games and all the price cuts in the world aren't going to be able to fix that, it's up to Sony to get third parties on board through any means necessary.

For many people, myself included, March 27th, 2011 was a day full of excitement, anticipation, and maybe just a hint of anxiety. Stateside, the Nintendo 3DS was about to make its debut and the Nintendo faithful were ready for an upgrade. It wasn't such a smooth transition, however. The 3DS launch was plagued by an inflated price point, a lack of compelling launch software, and an unclear mission statement for the new 3D device. What made the 3DS special? What made it worth the $249.99 price tag? These were questions that Nintendo had no answer for. Those of us who picked up a 3DS on launch day were treated to the likes of Nintendogs, Street Fighter, and Pilot Wings instead of the Mario and Zelda most of us were buying the system for. Luckily, Nintendo saw the error of its ways by dropping the price and giving us the compelling software we were all clamoring for. After months without anything to play the quality games began to flood in. The "Ambassadors" (those who bought the 3DS before its $80 price drop) were finally beginning to feel validated by their early adoption of the 3DS. On the other hand, some people who still weren't impressed by the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Super Mario 3D Land, Resident Evil: Revelations, etc. still felt no need to buy a 3DS. Well, the must-have game of the 3DS has finally arrived in Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Fire Emblem: Awakening, the thirteenth installment in the Fire Emblem series, is a strategy RPG in which players move their units across a battlefield and engage opponents in combat. The results of each battle are determined by a multitude of factors such as stats, equipment, terrain, class, skills, and the position of adjacent units. Your units gain experience as they battle, allowing them to level up and become more powerful. A units' class determines what stats are more easily raised and these classes can be changed or advanced using seals. This system of changing and advances classes is what allows you to create vastly different teams. You might choose to keep your main character as a tactician and then advance him to a grandmaster, while a friend may choose to change him to a different class. Each class gives unique skills, so changing a units' class can allow you to accumulate a myriad of different skills to further customize your team with. This unique system of classes and skills assures that no two players will be able to play the game exactly alike and creates almost limitless replay value. Units also have specific weapon types available to them, including magic, bows, swords, axes, lances, etc. These weapons all have different advantages and disadvantages against each other and make planning your moves very important. Finally, if two units are positioned on adjacent squares or are "paired up" they can give each other bonuses and help on the battlefield. Not only that, but units can build relationships by assisting each other and eventually they can even get married and have children.

The problem with most of the other Fire Emblem games is that they can be quite complex and challenging. While Awakening can be a challenge, developer Intelligent Systems manages to make it the most newcomer friendly. In previous games, a units' death was permanent. If you lost a character at any point in the game, they would be gone for good. This adds an extra layer of challenge and ensures that every move you make matters. For some, however, this might be a bit off-putting. The prospect of playing a chapter for a half an hour, just to lose a unit at the end and have to start all over is not an easy thing to get over for many people. For the first time in the series players are able to decide whether to leave this feature on or to turn it off. This way classic Fire Emblem fans will be able to experience the same tension they're used to while newer players can be eased in. The game also features four difficulty levels: normal, hard, lunatic, and lunatic+. Most players will find normal to be a decent level of challenge, but skilled Fire Emblem veterans can try their hand at hard or even lunatic. If you manage to beat the game on lunatic you'll unlock the hardest difficulty, the brutal lunatic+.

As I talked about before, you can obtain different units in the game that you use on the battlefield. These units can be recruited over the course of the game's story or through various optional missions. Many characters can be killed on accident instead of being recruited, leading to a Pokemon-like mentality of needing to "catch them all." Some of the best units in the game can be completely missed and some of them might start off at very low levels with terrible stats. Some might also be more well suited to a different class, it's really up to the player to experiment and discover a team that works for them.

Without getting into any spoilers, the story line in Fire Emblem: Awakening is superb. Chrom's tale is artfully woven and the localization quality, cutscene animations, and voice acting are top notch (the ability to use either Japanese or English audio is a nice feature for those who prefer hearing the characters' original voice overs). The story is worth playing for alone, but the added touch of the more personal conversations between characters whose relationships form on the battlefield adds extra incentive to try new combinations. The characters are so likable that it makes the reality of losing them in battle even more difficult.

As I've alluded to throughout the rest of this article, the replay-ability of Fire Emblem: Awakening is one of the things that really sets it apart. All the different combinations of characters, classes, relationships, etc. mean that no two playthroughs will be the same. If that isn't enough, Nintendo is releasing extra DLC maps featuring classic Fire Emblem characters like Marth, Ike, and Roy for $2.50 each. Each one has a different part of a new storyline (the first set of three is it's own story, for instance) and beating each of these maps will unlock a different classic FE character to use in any battles you see fit. This means that there will be even more content to play for the foreseeable future. Even if you choose not to buy any DLC, it's clear that the amount of content in Fire Emblem is pretty staggering.

In Fire Emblem: Awakening, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems have made one of the best strategy RPGs of all time and the one of the first true must-haves on 3DS. From a technological standpoint the game looks great and the 3D effect adds a lot of depth. Beyond that, however, it's the compelling story and deep, engaging gameplay that will keep you coming back for more. Fire Emblem: Awakening is not an easy game to get your hands on (many of stores are experiencing shortages), but once you do it's a tough game to put down.

What do you think about Fire Emblem: Awakening? If you don't already have a 3DS, do you think Fire Emblem is a good reason to pick one up? For those who have been trying to buy it, have you had any trouble picking up a copy? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for reading.